User blog:Erevan/The Black Widow
We’ve come face to face with what I can only describe as a nightmare incarnate… and prevailed. After burning our way through the slime cavern with acid, we found two tunnels headed down further into the mountains; we decided to investigate the Eastern tunnel because Myrddin said he had “a good feeling about that one.” As we progressed, the spiderwebs lining the passage became thicker, crossed further into the tunnel, and eventually so difficult that we had to cut them to proceed. Though we tried to do so disturbing them as little as possible, we still attracted the attention of their makers: two giant spiders. Giant. Teleporting. Spiders. They popped into the tunnel surrounding us, and after both swiping and biting at us, tried to escape with a poisoned and unconscious Ivellios. A last attack by Suyolle made the one carrying Ivellios drop him, which should warm his cold heart toward the wolf a bit. We decided to make a strategic reverse foray to the slime cavern, but were intercepted by the spiders popping in again. Apparently they didn’t like being run off from their own tunnels. We had recovered enough to finish the work we had started earlier (namely turning them inside out) and earn a fairly safe rest. I had thought the contagion plaguing these lands was restricted to humanoids and the gray death, but apparently the creatures in the mountains have been twisted as well. The giant tentacle maggots, the giant razor ants, and now giant teleporting spiders? This continent is in more need of cleansing than I had imagined. After stabilizing and curing most of our wounds, we proceeded down the tunnel again. This time we found something interesting in the webs: an Auroran Devotean! Myrddin knew some bardic trick to speak with the dead, and we learned some amazing things… *He was part of the Emperor’s own guard on his ill-fated attempt to purify the continent. *Part of his squad had made it as far as the mountains, the last survivors of the legion. *His compatriots had been carrying maps and supplies, but had been killed by the spiders. *He described several different monsters dwelling under the mountains, though I didn’t believe him at the time; some kind of spider-man, and a lightning dragon, though at the time I had my doubts. *Maybe some other things, but by then I had noticed his cloak… Once Myrddin had finished chatting about the old days with him and put his spirit to rest, we set about looting his corpse. Not to sound callous about it, but nothing he had was doing him any good any more, but it could save us from meeting a similar fate. We used some of our rope to create a harness around his cocooned body, and decided to just grab hold and run like Noxsator himself was after us. Once we had reached a safe distance, we cut the webs open and took a look at the poor bastard’s kit. He had once been wearing armor, though that had been removed (which struck us as odd, but was later explained), and a fancy, pitch-black cloak. I tried it on, and we could tell there was some magic to it; puzzling out exactly what may take some time. Despite that, the others seemed confused as to where I had gone when they looked up from the soldier’s body. I’m sure it will come in most handy, indeed… We decided to continue down the webbed tunnel, since it was still early in the day. Passing the alcove where we had found the soldier, the webs grew so thick we had to slash them like foliage in the jungle. I almost wish we had turned back for help; finding the mine was our task, not clearing it, but we didn’t know what we would find: a hideous perversion of man and beast, wearing the armor from the dead Aurroran soldier. It had too many eyes on its humanoid head, and below the torso was the body of a spider at least as large as those we had fought earlier. It could only have been a drider, a corruption of nature so rare and blasphemous that even the oldest elves of the clan thought they were ancient boogie men. And it had a bow. It intoned something in a dark language and we all began to glow with faerie fire; with us properly illuminated, it began a rapid stream of arrows. Meanwhile, two more spiders popped into the midst of the party and began attacking. The close-ranged fought the spiders that had popped in to keep them from killing us, and Ivellios and I tried to take out the abomination. The spiders were eventually killed, but we were all gravely injured, and despite being entangled, thorned, and moonbeamed, the drider was still raining down arrows on us. I eventually remembered the sun orb, and called it from the pack it had been stowed in. This, finally, seemed to affect our enemy. Suyolle and I were able to pull the others to safety and revive them, at which point the thing cast a darkness spell to cover its escape. The arc where the sun orb’s light and the darkness spell intersected was oddly beautiful… but we didn’t stick around to investigate. We are now holed up in the offices in the very first cavern, having nearly died fighting that thing to a standstill. I honestly do not know if we can defeat it, or if we even dare try without reinforcements. Category:Blog posts Category:Adventure Log Category:Erevan Adventure Log